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| The Giant of the East Photo Credit: Online World of Wrestling |
Promotions: AJPW, NWA
Nicknames: Giant, Giant Zebra, Babyface, Giant of the East
Classic Affiliations: Baba's lineage can be traced directly to the godfather of puroresu, Rikidozan. The legendary progenitor of Japanese wrestling trained Baba. Baba in turn trained Jumbo Tsuruta, arguably his greatest draw and one of the few men who could stand with him, Rikidozan and Antonio Inoki as the giants of puroresu. Speaking of Inoki, while the two would become rival promoters, the two students of Rikidozan tagged together when they first broke into the business.
Height: 6'11"
Weight: 330 lbs.
From: Sanjo, Japan
After the jump...Signature Maneuvers
Top 10 Moves of Giant Baba
Classic Feuds:
Baba's most classic feud wasn't in the ring, but out of it, as he and his former tag partner had a fierce rivalry between their two promotions. Inoki's New Japan Pro Wrestling and Baba's All-Japan Pro Wrestling would become the two benchmark promotions of classic puroresu.
Titles Held:
NWA World Heavyweight Championship (3x)
NWA International Tag Team Championships (12x, 6x with Jumbo Tsuruta, 4x with Antonio Inoki, 1x apiece with Michiaki Yoshimura and Seiji Sakaguchi)
NWA World Tag Team Championships (Detroit, with Jumbo Tsuruta)
NWA International Heavyweight Championship (3x)
AJPW Champion's Carnival (7x)
AJPW All Asia Championship
PWF World Heavyweight Championship (4x)
Promos:
Nope.
Baba's Legacy: Giant Baba was one of the most important figures in Japanese wrestling ever. Without him or his rival Antonio Inoki, puroresu wouldn't have been brought to the forefront of American wrestling attention the way it was in history. While New Japan garnered a lot of attention, it was always the AJPW stars who attracted the big American stars. Baba wrestled Ric Flair, Bruno Sammartino and Buddy Rodgers, and his proteges had classics with Flair, Ricky Steamboat and several other stars of the '80s.
He also was one of the best wrestlers of his era. It was in part to the standards he set that modern puroresu evolved to have such technical prowess and high emotion attached to each main event. All-Japan under his watch had some of the most classic main events of all-time. These were classic in-ring tilts that resonated across the Pacific to reach rabid wrestling fans here in America. In a way, he and his AJPW directly influenced the American indie scene, as Ring of Honor definitely paid homage to the classic AJPW main event style.
Baba did so much for puroresu, both inside and out of the ring. He died before AJPW unraveled, but before that, it was one of the finest wrestling promotions ever. Even as important as he was, when it was his time to step down, he stepped down and let Tsuruta, Misawa and his other young lions take over. If that's not the measure of a great promoter, I don't know what is.
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